Open Broadcast Software User Guide
Open Broadcaster Software (also known as OBS) is an open source streaming and recording program hosted at OBS Projecthttps://obsproject.com/. It allows for the user to screencast a computer screen. A screencast is a digital recording of a computer screen output that is often accompanied by audio narration. Due to its open source nature, OBS is completely free to use, with an option to make a financial donation only if the user wants to do so. History The first contribution to the creation of OBS was made by Hugh Bailey under a username attributed to "JP9000," or "Jim." The first accessible version of the software was available for download on September 1st of 2012. The most recent update to OBS is listed on November 24th, 2015.https://obsproject.com/changelog Forty-two contributors have worked on the software since it was first launched. In addition to OBS, Bailey and seventy-nine other contributors have worked on OBS MultiPlatform. MultiPlatform was first released for public use on May 21st, 2014. According to the website, MultiPlatform is a complete rewrite of OBS from the ground up. The goal of the project is to provide multiplatform support, for both Mac and Linux users, as the original OBS is only available for Windows. MultiPlatform was last updated on September 23rd of 2015. Development on the standard software has largely stopped in favor of MultiPlatform development, although both sets of software continue to be updated. A detailed list of changes can be found on the OBS website for both programs. How OBS Works OBS allows for the user to capture footage from a number of different locations. Users can record the entire monitor, individual windows on the screen, from just one video game on their machine, or from a webcam. OBS records audio through both internal and external microphones. Users can insert images of text into a video as it is being recorded or streamed, and these objects can be resized simultaneously. OBS also comes with a number of plugins, and there are many more available for download from the OBS forums that are created by the userbasehttps://obsproject.com/forum/categories/plugins.38/. Anyone looking to create a plugin or contribute to the project can access the source code on github.https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio Standard OBS software is only available for Windows users with access to Windows 7 or later versions. MultiPlatform is available for Windows, Mac users with version 10.8 or higher, and Linux users. OBS is written using C and C++ programming languages. Data transmitted by OBS is carried across the Internet via Real Time Messaging Protocols and can be sent to any RTMP supported destination. This includes YouTube, Twitch.tv, DailyMotion, Hitbox, etc. OBS utilizes the x264 free software library, Intel Quick Sync Video, and NVENC for encoding streams into H264 and AAC formats. Files are saved as either .mp4 or .flv files. Audio is encoded in either .mp3 or .AAC. OBS also maintains DirectShow capture support, allowing for the use of outside video recorders and storage devices, such as webcams or capture cards. What Can Be Done with OBS With this technology and streaming sites such as Twitch.tv or other video sites, streamers are able to record their activities on computers performing all sorts of tasks. This software is often used to record tutorials for software or hardware features. Artists use it to broadcast the creation of their works, as do writers and even small independent film editors. Let's Play channels are often started with this technology, as it allows for gamers to record their footage on their computer, or even their console with the right connections. Operation 1. Download the software from the OBS website. Select which software is right for you; OBS or MultiPlatform. Installation of the software should be quick; just follow the instructions as they show up, like any other program installation. 2. Open the program, and you should see the main interface. Here you will find the preview pane, the scenes and sources list, and the audio-video options. 3. Click settings, which brings up the General settings menu. Here you can set up your profile for recordings or streaming. 4. Encoding is probably the most confusing part of streaming at first, but it's really simple. Speedtests will be different for each person using OBS. A good quality setting is around 8. Set it higher for better upload speeds and lower for worse speeds. Maximum bitrate is dependent on upload speed. If a Speedtest shows a speed of 1.50mbps, that's 1500kb/s. A good value here for this bitrate would be 1000 or 1100. Buffer size should be set at the same. Audio codecs should be set to AAC, with 128 as a value. With a good connection, go with 192 or higher. When setting bitrates, remember that whatever you upload at your viewers will need at least that in order to view your stream. This means a person will require their download speeds to be at least that to watch. Additionally, most stream services will not accept bitrates over a certain value. If you're not sure of what will work best, utilize the site's settings estimator. 5. Under Broadcast, choose whether you are streaming or recording. This is where you choose which site you are streaming to, or which file in your computer you are saving a recording to. 6. Video and Audio settings should not require much adjustment. Base resolution is the size of the video on your end. The final size that actually gets encoded and streamed is what is listed under Resolution Downscale option. For quality purposes, it is best to have a normal base resolution and then downscale it. These options depend a lot on your computer your connection. 30 FPS is a good value to keep, and a good rule of thumb is to keep FPS a factor of 60. Audio settings allows for the designation of the microphone and the creation of a hotkey for speech. 7. Advanced settings should generally be left as they are, unless you are certain you know what you want to change. These settings are generally set a good default for most computers. Now you can return to the main interface, select your sources for your scene, and click Preview, Start Streaming or Start Recording. Frequently Asked Questions Is OBS really completely free to use? Do I need an account? OBS is 100% free to use, and donations are encouraged but not necessary. There is no need to create a username or a password, unless you want to become a contributor to the source code or post on the forums. Will this program ever work on Windows XP? It's unlikely that OBS will ever work on Windows XP, because XP lacks DirectX10 support, which is needed for OBS to run. What settings should I use to run OBS? The OBS website features a settings estimator, which can be accessed here.https://obsproject.com/estimator What are scenes? What are sources? A scene contains the list of sources being drawn on during a given recording or stream. Sources can be images on a screen, or a webcam, the desktop, a game window, or any other windowed object on the computer. There is not a limit on how many sources can make up a scene, nor is there a limit to how many scenes make up a recording. OBS can be thought of like Photoshop; a scene is a page and the sources are the various layers. Remember to right-click on these menus to create new scenes or add new sources. How do I install plugins? Plugins can be found on the OBS forums. Installing plugins is done by copying and pasting the plugin files into the plugins folder of OBS. To find this folder, right click OBS on the desktop, click open file location, and the plugins folder is the second listing. How do I record instead of streaming? Under the settings tab in OBS, click Broadcast settings. At the very top of the menu, change "streaming" to "file output only." Click browse to choose where and what type of file your recording will save as; .flv or .mp4. If you are streaming, this is the same menu used to determine where you are streaming to. Under the streaming menu, a list of available websites is listed for streaming locations. How do I move a source in my video? While streaming, click "Edit Scene" to move objects on the screen. Hold Ctrl while moving a source to prevent the source from snapping to one side. You can hold Shift to ignore the aspect ratio. You can hold Alt to crop the source. Gallery Capture.PNG|OBS Main Screen GeneralSettings.PNG|General Settings Tab EncodingSettings.PNG|Encoding Tab BroadcastSettings.PNG|Broadcast Tab VideoSettings.PNG|Video Tab AudioSettings.PNG|Audio Tab HotkeysSettings.PNG|Hotkeys Tab AdvancedSettings.PNG|Advanced Settings Tab QuickSync.PNG|QuickSync Tab MicrophoneNoiseGate.PNG|Microphone Noise Gate Tab SceneSwitcher.PNG|Scene Switcher Tab Recording.PNG|OBS in use on a desktop Category:User Guides Category:Digital Humanities Category:Broadcasting Category:ENG 460